


quantum mechanics, smirks, and other complications of the universe

by amillionsmiles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Pidge is bad at assessing her own feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amillionsmiles/pseuds/amillionsmiles
Summary: "It's like Schrodinger's cat. The cat is both dead and alive until you open the box. Lance is both charming and not until he opens his mouth, and then he's just...not.""Hey!"It's the littlest things that are hardest to measure. Pidge tries anyways.





	quantum mechanics, smirks, and other complications of the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flusteredkeith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flusteredkeith/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Законы квантовой механики, усмешки и другие вселенские сложности](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049336) by [timmy_failure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmy_failure/pseuds/timmy_failure)



> Birthday fic for Justine, who got me into this ship in the first place. Thanks for always being so kind and welcoming and encouraging; I'm truly thankful to have gotten to know you and to have you as a friend <3
> 
> partially inspired by [this lovely piece of art](https://amillionsmiles.tumblr.com/post/164524058454/some-aliens-throw-a-party-for-the-voltron)

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says this: the more you know about the position of a particle, the less you can know about its momentum, and vice versa.

Pidge’s Field Guide to Her Friends (Version 2.0, after extensive beta testing) says this: in precisely ten ticks, Lance will approach the tall, four-eyed, four-armed alien with a wink and a pick-up line.

Sure enough, the experiment begins right on time.  Lance saunters over, all long limbs and diamond-edged smile, leaning casually against the pillar to deliver his pièce de résistance: “Are you from space?  Because your body’s _out of this world.”_  

Based on Pidge’s calculations (after all, a scientist is only as good as the notes she keeps), this line has a 67% success rate.

The alien looks at Lance, all four eyes staring at him blankly, before excusing itself from the conversation.  Pidge turns around to hide her snicker, taking out her palm pad so that she can update her data.  The column keeping track of “overtures made” goes up from 27 to 28.

“What are you doing?” Hunk appears at her shoulder.

“Testing a hypothesis.  Have you ever thought about how Lance is kind of like Schrodinger’s Cat?”

Hunk strokes his chin. “Not really. Explain.”

“The cat is both dead and alive until you open the box.  Lance is both charming and not until he opens his mouth, and then he’s just… not.”

 _“Hey!”_ This comes from over her left shoulder; Pidge nearly jumps out of her skin upon realizing that the topic of their conversation has… decided to join the conversation.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to hear you talking about me behind my back,” Lance pouts.  “Not cool, Pidge. I thought we had something.”

“Sorry, I’m taken by science.”

Lance snorts and rolls his eyes, bumping her on the shoulder before his attention gets caught by the arrival of a new prospect.  In no time, he’s jumped right back in, and Pidge wonders, briefly, what that must feel like.  To throw yourself into something without any idea of where the chips will fall.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Hunk smirking at her.

“What?”

The grin widens.  “You think he’s charming.”

 

*

  
“Psst, Pidge!” Lance accosts her on the couch, draping himself over the back of it to speak right in her ear.  “I need your help.”

At this point, Pidge is proud to say that she’s gotten better at managing her reactions to Lance sneaking up at her.  Coolly, she closes her laptop, turning over her shoulder to ask: “With what?”

Lance shoots her a cryptic smile, shoving his hands in his pockets as he moves around the couch to stand in front of her.  “Come with me and you’ll see.”

Several scenarios flash through her mind.  1) Prank—a bucket rigged to spill on her head.  2) Surprise—Lance is a generous person, after all, and he did joke once that he was going to knit her a sweater.  3) Lance actually needs help.

Statistically speaking, it’s probably option three.

Sighing, Pidge gets to her feet and follows him out of the room.  Lance whistles, hands braced behind his head and elbows jutting out in the air as he leads them, cheerfully, through the halls.  They come to a stop in front of a set of doors, the scent of manure hitting her as they slide open, a low _moo_ echoing from inside.

“Kaltenecker,” Pidge gasps, feeling immediately guilty.  “I forgot.” 

Lance has already crossed the room in a few quick, easy strides, bringing a hand to Kaltenecker’s flank.  She moos again, turning toward him slightly; Lance raises an eyebrow at Pidge, gesturing her over with a slight tilt of his head.

So Pidge goes.  It makes her feel bad, wondering if Lance has been checking up on Kaltenecker all this time without her. Cautiously, she reaches toward the cow; Kaltenecker nudges against her palm gently, nostrils puffing warm air, nose slightly wet.

“There, see?” Lance is saying, stroking Kaltenecker’s side.  “Mom didn’t forget about you, she was just busy.”

It takes a beat for the words to hit. “Mom?”

Lance scratches the back of his neck, looking sheepish.  “I mean, it felt weird to refer to myself as just the owner—that’s so cold, you know?  I figured we’re basically like Kaltenecker’s parents, so you’re Mom and I’m Dad—” Halfway through, Lance breaks off. “Okay, now that I’m saying that out loud and to your face, it sounds pretty weird.”   

“A little.”

“I mean, if you have an alternative…”     

Pidge purses her lips.  “Why am I the mom, anyways?  Why can’t you be the mom and I be the dad?”

“Fine, I’m the mom,” Lance says, not missing a beat.  They hold each other’s gaze for a solid ten seconds before a laugh bubbles up Pidge’s throat, and then she’s snorting into the back of her hand while Lance snickers.

“Who gets custody if we fight?” she asks.

“Hunk.”

“That’s actually what I was thinking, too.”

“Good to know we’re on the same wavelength.” Lance grins.

Kaltenecker snuffles against her hand again, and Pidge says: “Lance?”

He pauses his motions, tilting his head.  “Hm?”

“We should do this more often.”

Lance’s brow furrows. “The accidentally adopting a cow part, or the taking care of Kaltenecker?”

“Just—hanging out,” Pidge says, and she doesn’t know why those two words summon a burst of heat to her face, but she turns away slightly to hide it, not wanting Lance to get the wrong idea.

“Yeah,” Lance says, maybe a touch too quickly.  “Yeah, of course.”

 

*

 

“Lance.  _Laaaaance._ ”

“What— _dammit,_ Pidge!” says Lance, scowling as he turns his face straight into the finger Pidge has poised by his cheek.  “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

In the aftermath of their bout of Killbot Phantasm 1, Pidge sets her controller down and sprawls out on her back, the metal flooring cool against the base of her head.  There are a host of things to attend to: checking up on Green, helping Hunk in the kitchen, trying to advance another level in the Altean language training program.  But, for whatever reason, she wants to prolong _this_ moment.

“You’re just a sucker,” she teases, folding her hands on her stomach.

Lance joins her after a beat.  The hair on her scalp prickles at his nearness.  “Enjoying the view?”

There’s nothing much to look at, just the cavernous arches of the ceiling.  Pidge traces a beam with her eyes, wondering briefly about what the rest of Altea’s architecture must have looked like, before she asks: “Lance, were you any good at spotting constellations?”

Matt had been good at it.  She remembers lying on a picnic blanket, sandwiched between him and her dad.  The stars glimmering to life one by one, the strength of their light growing as the night wore on, deepening.  Making a game of who could find Orion or Perseus first.

“Not really,” Lance admits.  “I could basically just find the Big Dipper and…that one swan one.”

“Cygnus?”

“Yeah.”  Lance is quiet for a beat, and then he adds: “It makes sense that you’d be good at them.”

Pidge frowns. “What makes you say that?”

“I was just thinking of what you did with your Galra finder—”

“Technically, it wasn’t made to _find_ them, just to predict their most likely locations—”

“Okay, predictor, whatever,” Lance says, nudging her slightly with his elbow. “But that’s the point, right?  You find patterns. You connect the dots.”

This last part is said… _differently,_ somehow, and Pidge turns her head, startled to find Lance already looking at her instead of the ceiling.  His face is frighteningly close, lashes dark against the smooth, tan skin of his cheek.  For the first time, Pidge notices the gentle slope of his nose, how it would only take a few inches for her to bump against it, to touch foreheads.  A small adjustment.

Lance’s lips part slightly. To take a breath, or say something else.  Something that’ll ruin this between them, whatever _this_ is, and Pidge can’t take it, would rather not have her hypothesis confirmed.  ( _I think of you like—_ )

She jolts away. Sits up. Something flashes across Lance’s face, too quick to catch.

“I forgot—I promised Hunk I’d help try to translate some of the Altean ingredients in the kitchen today.” 

“Yeah.” Lance doesn’t miss a beat.  “Yeah, you should go.”

At the doorway, Pidge pauses.

A theory: it will hurt if she looks back.

It’ll hurt more if she doesn’t.

She risks a glance over her shoulder. Lance is still lying on the floor, hands braced behind his head, now, staring up at the ceiling.  His cowlick is more evident from this angle, like a little sprout. She imagines squashing it flat with her hand, then squashes that desire, too.

 

*

 

The quandary of quantum mechanics: when you get down to the tiniest level, the very act of measurement affects what you’re trying to measure. Hence the inability to know for certain both things at once—momentum and position, for instance. 

Memory is a little like that, too.  Pidge has read about it—how every act of recollection alters it, slightly.  And with the number of times she’s replayed certain moments—a joke made over their communications line, but just for her ears; a brush of fingers; the upward tick of Lance’s eyebrow; a razor-thin smirk shot across the dinner table—well, her data’s skewed now, isn’t it?   

Some things don’t make any more sense under a microscope.  You can spend all night turning them over in your head, and the harder you look, the more they seem to shift, made inscrutable.  It’s the difference between observing things and actually _living_ them, maybe.  The risk of getting too close.

 

*

 

Pidge excuses herself from the celebration after a few rounds of mingling.  She’ll dive back in later, but it’s looking to be a long night and she needs to recharge.  Some people draw their energy from others; Pidge, on the other hand, has always preferred programming to people.

Jespora’s two moons are bright, the stars scattered between them like tiny jewels on black velvet.  There aren’t any constellations that Pidge can recognize, here, so she entertains herself with drawing some of her own.  The quiet reminds her of sneaking out onto the roof of the Garrison, tuning in to the chatter of the universe.  Ears straining for answers, Matt and Dad somewhere out there, still. _Send me a sign._

“So, you come out here to rock out?”

The voice is right in her ear.  Pidge flails, and it really is like they’re back on the Garrison roof—Lance crouched over her, a single eyebrow raised.  The only difference is that they’re both wearing formal wear, this time, and the collar of her suit suddenly feels too constricting.

“Something on your mind, Pidge?” Lance presses, settling down next to her.  He stretches his legs out, leaning back on his hands.  No hesitant _“Can I sit here?”_ Lance just slots himself into place, buoyed by an easy self-assurance that Pidge envies, sometimes.

Pidge eyes him warily, reorganizing her body into her earlier cross-legged position.  Careful not to accidentally brush against him with her knee.  She’s not used to being this aware of her limbs around Lance; yet another thing that snuck up on her, before she knew what to do with it.

“I just needed some space,” she admits.  “Sometimes it feels like…like there are too many people to keep up with.”

Lance reaches over, gently fixing the tassel of one of her epaulettes.  “Yeah, I get it.”

“You’re good at this stuff, though,” Pidge says, forcing herself to be still under his attention.  “Talking to people, making them laugh…” She trails off, hugging her knees to her chest.  “Why’d _you_ come out here, anyways?”

At her shoulder, Lance’s fingers pause.  “Honestly? There’s this girl I wanted to hang out with, but she bailed.”

Pidge snorts.  “Typical,” she says, proud that her voice comes out with its usual blend of sarcasm and annoyance. _Green with envy._ Never have her paladin colors been more apt.  But Lance is never going to get a read on her, not if she can help it.

She can still feel his attention on her face, though, which is all wrong.  Pidge is the one who keeps track of everyone, categorizes strengths and weaknesses, takes notes.  Lance’s job is to crack jokes and come up with dumb team slogans and—

Lance sighs.  It’s the heavy, long-suffering sound of someone giving up. Giving in.

“You have no idea who I’m talking about.”

“Um, no, was I supposed to be keeping track?” Pidge retorts.  Rhetorical question, since she does. Keep track. Not that Lance has to know.  Pidge pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, wondering if it was the tall alien lady with the pink eyes and blue hair buns.  Probably.

“It’s you, Pidge.”

The ground tilts, just a fraction, beneath her.  This isn’t part of any mathematical model she could fit to their interactions, not something she could have predicted.

“What?” she says, a little shrill.

“It’s you,” Lance repeats, blue eyes boring into her, and she wants to ask him about what that _means._   If he has some sort of plan in his head for where to go from here. If it’s just a spur of the moment thing, a whim that’ll fall, unspoken, through the cracks, forgotten by morning.  Pidge thinks all this but doesn’t have the right words to formulate around them.  Just sits.

It’s such a Lance thing to do.  Offer up vulnerability without any meditation on what it might cost him. Say something simple and leave her spinning, still caught up in the uncertainty of it all.

In the end, though, it comes down to a simple truth.  Like wave-particle duality or the law of universal gravitation, this is what Pidge knows: Lance will do his best to catch her as she falls.

“So what do you say, Pidge?” Lance gets to his feet, offers a hand.  “It takes two to tango.”

“You’re so weird,” she finally manages, wrinkling her nose, but she lets him pull her up, lets him spin her out with a flourish, connected by their hands, until somehow they end up pressed close in the moonlight, her head resting against his chest.

She can hear his heartbeat, thumping just a tick too fast.  Unexpected, but _right,_ somehow.  She swallows.

“Interesting.”

“Good interesting?” asks Lance, vulnerable beneath his teasing.  Both smug and uncertain, as only Lance can be.

“Unclear,” Pidge considers, tilting her head to blink up at him.  “Needs more data.”

Lance chuckles and hugs her tighter, her chin digging into the knobby bone of his sternum, and Pidge smiles, too, a particle firing in the dark—unsure of when this feeling started or how fast she’s been barreling into it but knowing, down to the electron, that her heart is exactly where it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [tumblr](https://amillionsmiles.tumblr.com/)


End file.
